I am deeply saddened to see pop up on the front page of The Huffington Post that Howard Zinn passed away today at 87. I know that I am not alone among my colleagues in saying that Howard Zinn is the reason I became a historian. Back in the late-1980s and early-1990s when I...
With the Supreme Court ruling by the “Fabulous Five,” Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, a single corporation will be able tap into its deep pockets and disfranchise a million citizens. A group calling itself “Citzens United” has just won a fight to give huge corporations more control over our politics. Even the 1886...
Historically speaking, very bad things happen to a people who acquiesce in the corporate takeover of their government. In the first half of the 20th Century we learned that Trusts couldn’t be trusted and that FIAT, Krupps, and I.G. Farben made very bad public policy in Italy and Germany. We just suffered through eight...
So the Senate seat that John Fitzgerald Kennedy won by defeating the incumbent Republican Henry Cabot Lodge in 1952, and then passed on to his brother, Edward Moore Kennedy, in 1962 has fallen to a Republican far more rightwing than Cabot Lodge. It’s partly Ted Kennedy’s fault for not cultivating an obvious heir. It’s...
The most devastating natural disaster to hit the Western Hemisphere in decades inundates the American news media. The humanitarian effort from across the globe in response to the disastrous earthquake in Haiti has been astounding. Mainstream television has produced an array of shocking and heroic visuals sandwiched between car commercials and ads for Viagra...
Before the music swells, the long dissolve, and the credits roll, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and his merry band of right-wing Republicans who control a third of the state legislature are intent on making one final power play to squeeze the last drops of blood from California’s public institutions. Schwarzenegger’s hackneyed “State of the State”...
The British Iraq Inquiry Is Ours Too
The British Iraq Inquiry heard testimony from former Prime Minister Tony Blair today and it’s terrific that C-SPAN is airing it. What the United Kingdom is dealing with is the hangover of the crimes of George W. Bush, crimes that have been conveniently swept under the rug on this side of the pond. Blair...
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